In 2012, we covered women, finance, and economic inequality in our Rise Up and Call Her Name class. As a group, we decided to start making microloans via Kiva.org and have kept that original money recirculating continuously for the last 8 years, making 55 loans to different women and groups in a variety of countries. Last week, I made our first “Crisis Support” microloan to an organization in Ghana. I then added additional microloans to a woman in Zambia and, in another first, to a woman in Dayton, IN (our first US-based loan! Her link is here).
This is not intended as a back-patting moment, but rather to encourage you to scope out Kiva too. As long as you don’t take the money back out and you reinvest in another person as soon as you have enough money back in to do so, you can keep a relatively small amount of money working for years and years like this.
I started this maybe 10 years ago with one $25 loan and have since multiplied it to about $200 and have loaned to a of number different people and loaned it again and again. I’ve lost track of how many people I loaned it to why I loaned it to them. I’ve had every loan paid back 100% except one. I am on Team USA and sometimes I take their suggestion to loan to someone and sometimes I don’t. I love being part of the Kiva program and helping people!